Difference between Methylated Spirits and Isopropyl Alcohol?? And to spray or not to spray..

RE: Difference between Methylated Spirits and Isopropyl Alcohol?? And to spray or not to spray..

James Colver Cert. Ed, RVN — Tue, 09 Jul 2019 00:29:19 GMT

..Depends on who you speak to I guess Sal. It's a big part of why I left teaching.

RE: Difference between Methylated Spirits and Isopropyl Alcohol?? And to spray or not to spray..

Sal the 1st — Mon, 08 Jul 2019 21:35:30 GMT

[quote user="jimbomcgrimbo"]

Yup. It happens all the time. Teachers being so fed up with returning work to students that they just end up passing it. Teachers being frightened to fail students' work because, well, nobody is allowed to fail anything anymore. Teachers basically ending up just telling the student what to write so that their work passes.

Bums on seats, funding, success rates. That's what it all boils down to these days I'm afraid. And it completely de-values qualifications for those that have studied hard, spent time on assignments and made the effort to hand work in promptly.

[/quote]

In one post you have just confirmed everything I have suspected for some time - not at all surprised sadly. And this is progress ??

RE: Difference between Methylated Spirits and Isopropyl Alcohol?? And to spray or not to spray..

James Colver Cert. Ed, RVN — Sun, 07 Jul 2019 21:56:52 GMT

RE: Difference between Methylated Spirits and Isopropyl Alcohol?? And to spray or not to spray..

Sal the 1st — Sun, 07 Jul 2019 20:57:48 GMT

'special passes'?

RE: Difference between Methylated Spirits and Isopropyl Alcohol?? And to spray or not to spray..

James Colver Cert. Ed, RVN — Sun, 07 Jul 2019 20:35:36 GMT

I don't think she sounds like a nightmare or a rotten apple. She is obviously inquisitive and thinking about what she is doing, which is more than can be said for the multitudes of nurses that are currently being dragged through college with 'special passes' and slavishly following whatever they have been told to do. You can't blame her, there is such a lack of proper evidence on this topic!

RE: Difference between Methylated Spirits and Isopropyl Alcohol?? And to spray or not to spray..

Sal the 1st — Sun, 07 Jul 2019 18:34:01 GMT

well she lasted longer than our new nurse last year - she only just made a week, spent lots of money buying things (many of which are still in cupboards). I was disappointed because I desperately wanted it to work but in the end not entirely surprised, I still want a nurse to join us, I would love to have another qualified nurse working with us. I don't like being the only qualified and if we can get some fresh blood in I can learn some of the more current stuff from them.

AND

sometimes it would just be nice to have a little support from the nursing staff, perhaps this might happen if there was another qualified working alongside

RE: Difference between Methylated Spirits and Isopropyl Alcohol?? And to spray or not to spray..

Catriona88 — Sun, 07 Jul 2019 08:16:47 GMT

FYI, this new nurse has just handed in her notice

RE: Difference between Methylated Spirits and Isopropyl Alcohol?? And to spray or not to spray..

Sal the 1st — Fri, 05 Apr 2019 08:48:12 GMT

[quote user="Catriona88"]

Totally agree Sal, those who can adapt will hang around. The next few months will be interesting, so watch this space!

We have such an awesome team culture here that I am really worried about having a rotten apple in the team.

[/quote]

not a rotten apple necessarily - but maybe someone who lacks experience in other methods. Maybe from the 'top end' it might seem that they are looking down on you but it might also be that they are only comfortable doing things the way they have always done until they learn a different way. Its hard for somebody to join in with an established team - probably just as hard for an established team to accept an outsider. We had a new HN at one place I worked, qualified 3 months before she came to us - she was hell to work with (earned herself the title 'Hitler in knickers').Had only been nursing just over 2 years where most of us had been in the job 6-10yrs. Out of work she was a really nice person to know but she stuck rigidly and I mean rigidly to what she had learned at college and the thing is some of what she had learned at college wasn't actually correct - it was more down to whoever had taught her personal preference.

As a locum I went into practices and sometimes though jeez are they really doing it like that? but sometimes when I sat down and thought about it some of it made perfect sense to do it that way because of the way the practice worked as a whole. Their way may have been different but it didn't make it bad, it worked for them and it was safe and effective

RE: Difference between Methylated Spirits and Isopropyl Alcohol?? And to spray or not to spray..

Catriona88 — Fri, 05 Apr 2019 08:08:34 GMT

[quote user="Veronica Brandel"]

Gorgie Hollis from the Wound Library is hot on the subject!! I can definitely forward you some articles if you want.

[/quote]

Yes please! Love reading articles. Cat.barclay79@gmail.com

[quote user="Veronica Brandel"]

Regarding chlorhexidine; it doesn't actually matter what percentage you use. The important thing is contact time. If you use a stronger concentration you need a shorted contact time. A 4% solution needs 5 minute contact time and therefore a 2.5% solution 10 minute contact time.

[/quote]

I didn't know this, thank you :-)

RE: Difference between Methylated Spirits and Isopropyl Alcohol?? And to spray or not to spray..

Catriona88 — Fri, 05 Apr 2019 07:59:32 GMT

Totally agree Sal, those who can adapt will hang around. The next few months will be interesting, so watch this space!

We have such an awesome team culture here that I am really worried about having a rotten apple in the team.

RE: Difference between Methylated Spirits and Isopropyl Alcohol?? And to spray or not to spray..

Catriona88 — Fri, 05 Apr 2019 07:47:23 GMT

[quote user="apache"]

She sounds like a nightmare.

[/quote]

Apache I think I would enjoy working with you! You are always straight to the point and it does make me chuckle.

Yes, she is proving difficult. I have never had a nurse come in and question everything we do and not seem to be open at all to different ways of doing things.

She has come from a completely different practice and although experienced she has only worked at that one other practice. Our clinic is a very busy small animal clinic in a lower decile area. We provide the best care to our patients but do have to be concious of costs otherwise these animals would receive no treatment. Her clinic was at the top end of town ;-)

Yes, we audit post op infections and have never had any issues. I've also told her we all need to be prepping pxts the same so we remove the variable of a different technique, I dont know if I've worded that correctly but I think you'll know what I mean!

Good to hear that what we are doing isn't really any different to anywhere else.

Thanks for your input:-)

RE: Difference between Methylated Spirits and Isopropyl Alcohol?? And to spray or not to spray..

Sal the 1st — Thu, 04 Apr 2019 19:46:23 GMT

[quote user="apache"]

She sounds like a nightmare. My suggestion would be to put a lunch and learn together where she can gather the published evidence supporting her views and you can have a team discussion with the vets and nurses about how to proceed.

We have used industrial meths in the past (the clear one not the purple one) but I was told surgical spirit (=isopropyl alcohol) was supposidly better, so have stuck with that. The meths contains methanol and that is potentially toxic.

We spray the site, if everything else is right in terms of warming the patient the effect is minimal. Don't drench the animal.

Chlorhex concentration is a really interesting one and I am very sceptical. We wet hands and use lots of water when scrubbing, the percentage on the surgeon may only be 0.25% and yet it seems effective. Forever we've used enough to make the water pink in a kidney dish, I'm guessing 1 in 10 dillution to scrub animals and our clinical audit shows very very few post op infections - clearly it is still effective.

I know from scrubbing myself that hibi left on your skin is really irritating and using gloopy neat hibi won't be much of a detergent and will be uncomfortable for the animal and draw attention to the surgical site.

[/quote]

in agreement with the above + would also say have you had any problems with what you are doing? - ie wound breakdowns. Do you carry out audits?

You often find that new staff like to make their mark on a practice early on, the smart ones adapt to the practice, those that can't adapt don't tend to stick around long. There are always new ways of doing things coming up - some of them really good and some needing a bit of tweaking equally some of the old ways of doing something are not as bad as they are made out to be. We can all learn from each other

Shock horror I used to work with a vet who was allergic to chlorhex and wouldn't use pevidine. He preferred believe it or not carbolic to scrub up with until I couldn't get it anymore and then as he put it he had to 'go nancy' and use Imperial Leather (he preferred carbolic smell). Our skin prep for patients was pevidine scrub followed by spirit can't recall us having anymore problems than I have seen with various other methods and we definitely weren't over using antibiotics.

RE: Difference between Methylated Spirits and Isopropyl Alcohol?? And to spray or not to spray..

Veronica Brandel — Thu, 04 Apr 2019 18:36:02 GMT

Hi,

I am surprised that you are still managing to get Methylated spirits as the licencing changed a few years ago and now (as far as I know) you need a special permit to get it?

Yes, it is a denatured alcohol (ethanol) containing 10% Methanol which is highly toxic, if ingested. It is also flammable and will leave a residue on the surface once evaporated. But, you are right! We used to use it a lot years ago with no clinical side-effects. Isopropyl alcohol on the other hand is usually cheaper, is a good disinfectant and leaves no residue on the skin. Both alcohols evaporate, so it doesn't matter how you apply it. If you spray it, however, you might want to wipe away excess to prevent pooling etc.

Skin prep is a really active subject at the moment and has been discussed at many occasions at BVNA, BEVA etc. Gorgie Hollis from the Wound Library is hot on the subject!! I can definitely forward you some articles if you want :)

Kind Regards,

Veronica.

RE: Difference between Methylated Spirits and Isopropyl Alcohol?? And to spray or not to spray..

Robyn — Thu, 04 Apr 2019 12:52:15 GMT

I'm afraid I didn't take a note of the reference, but I attended some CPD recently by a EVM lecturer from CAW, and the current evidence is that it should be 2% chlorhex minimum (so a 50% hibi, 50% water mix with the normal 4% hibi we all use). There's apparently no real difference between 2-4%, but below 2% makes a big difference on culture.

I'll try and have a look for the reference just now!

RE: Difference between Methylated Spirits and Isopropyl Alcohol?? And to spray or not to spray..

apache — Thu, 04 Apr 2019 10:14:12 GMT

We spray the site, if everything else is right in terms of warming the patient the effect is minimal. Don't drench the animal.